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The team is busy getting organised for this year’s edition of Swedish Beers in Barcelona! We loved Muy Buenas and its fab team so much last year that we’ve booked in with them again.

The format will be just the same – a relaxed evening, no formalities, no presentations. Just come with an open mind, be prepared to see friends old and new, chat, enjoy a drink or three (courtesy of our sponsors) and have yourself a good time all whilst extolling (or not) the virtues of our mobile connected world.

The Swedish Beers crew will be on hand to welcome you as usual and we’ll have the friendliest bar staff in town in we’re in one of the most stylish and historic bars in town on two floors. Muy Buenas will also have food available to buy on the night. Here are the photos from previous years’ events to give you a flavour of what to expect.

Tell your friends and get yourself registered.

Start time: 7pm onwards. We’re open until late but there is no admission after 1am.

Location: Bar Muy Buenas, Carrer Carme 63.

**Two sponsors confirmed. But we need more to make the party really fly. If you’d like to sponsor and join the fun and get to meet and mingle with the crowd, please get in touch with Helen to discuss. All budgets catered for.**

There may be a queue to get in at times but we managed to get pretty much everyone in who wanted to last year so please don’t be put off! The queue does move quite quickly. All are welcome to attend if you are working in and around the mobile industry and enjoy a good chat. You may be asked for ID on entry. You must be pre-registered to attend the event. We reserve the right to refuse entry.

*Update 18/2/19*Our first winners have been picked and contacted. However, Trustonic has given me a couple more passes to give away so I’m keeping the competition open until Thursday 21 February at 9.00 GMT so you still have time to enter round 2.

If you’re after an exhibition ticket for this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona we have at least two to give away courtesy of our friends at Trustonic. Save yourself Euro 799 and enter our free competition.

Just answer a simple question and fill in your details here and leave the rest to us. Closing date is Monday 18 February 2019 at midday GMT. Good luck and see you in Barcelona!

This will be my third visit to this annual conference organised by Mark Littlewood. And it’s always been a cracker – chock full of great content, good food, interesting conversations and actionable insights. This year we’re at the Barbican and I’m really looking forward to hanging out with everyone again. It makes a change to be at someone else’s event and not organising it!

If you fancy a speaker slot, then there’s still just about time to apply for one a spot in the lightning talks session. Read on for details on how to apply, more about the conference and a discounted ticket offer (I’ve been given a few discounted tickets).

So what’s this all about then?

Why would you want to come? Because you want to spend time learning how great software companies are built at a conference where the attendees are not the product.

What is it? A single-track conference to help you build great software and a profitable business. In depth talks, curated content. Zero sales/sponsor pitches or panels. If you’re looking for coding sessions, this one isn’t for you.

I’m particularly looking forward to hearing about product culture from Bruce, Laura’s session on building a business against well-funded competitors and the fall and rise of enterprise software from Bill.

Schedule – You can view more details on timing, speakers and session content here.

Who Comes? A potent mix of Founders, CEOs, CMOs, CTOs, COOs, CPOs and emerging leaders in scale-up and grown-up software companies, a few people from innovative corporates who want to embrace change, some smart investors. The common thread – people interested in getting better at what they do and learning new ideas that will impact their businesses and careers.

Fancy speaking at the conference? Well, it’s too late to join one of the main sessions, but applications are still being accepted for a spot during the lightning sessions. If you’d like to put yourself forward for one of those spots, you can find out how to do that here

And lucky for you, I have a few discounted tickets available with my special registration link where you get 20% off the April rate of £795 + Fees/VAT (The price goes up nearer the date). If you’re prompted for a code, please use TechnoKitten. Not only that, there’s a guarantee of quality. BoS offers you a full refund of the ticket price, if at the end of the conference you decide you did not get value out of it. You have nothing to lose!

Our next Heroes of Mobile event is a panel discussion in London on Wednesday 21 March 2018 where we’re discussing what we discovered at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Panellists include Paul Stringer who heads up the mobile team at Equal Experts and Priya Prakash who is the founder of D4SC and is also one of the UK Government’s DIT Technology Specialists. The session will be chaired by Helen Keegan.

What a fab time we had at Swedish Beers a couple of weeks back in Barcelona. Admittedly, the weather wasn’t up to much, but Muy Buenas gave us a very warm welcome despite us drinking the bar dry and having to have an emergency beer and wine delivery at midnight!

First up some thank yous:

To Carolina and her team at Muy Buenas for looking after us so well.

To Rosa, Patrick, Irene, Ida and Angel for being the welcoming committee with me at the door.

And to all of you who came and who keep the Swedish Beers spirit alive and kicking.

Next events:

The next Swedish Beers event will be in London but I haven’t yet fixed a date as I need to co-ordinate sponsors. If you’d like to sponsor, get in touch by email here.

In the meantime, you may want to pop along to the panel session I’m chairing in London on Wednesday 21 March 2018 where we’re discussing what we discovered at this year’s Mobile World Congress. Panellists include Paul Stringer who heads up the mobile team at Equal Experts and Priya Prakash who is the founder of D4SC and is also one of the UK Government’s DIT Technology Specialists.

The photos

I’ve uploaded all the ones I’ve received and all the professional ones by the fabulous Erika Arias. But if you have any to add these, please let me have them and I’ll include them in the Swedish Beers party albums on Facebook and Flickr with appropriate credits. Feel free to tag yourselves in the photos and share away!

The lovely people at Trustonic have come up trumps again with a lovely Mobile World Congress pass giveaway. They have five passes to give away. Closing date is Wednesday 21 February. All you have to do is answer one question and provide us with your contact details. The form is below. Good luck and hope to see you in Barcelona!

This is my 13th visit to Mobile World Congress and the 13th ladies meet-up that I have organised there. And this lunch is a chance for us ladies to get together for a couple of hours or so over a relaxed lunch and chew the fat with our peers. 40 Euro in advance / 45 Euro on the door if space is still available.

If you’d like to sponsor this event, please get in touch with me, Helen Keegan. If a sponsor is found, this will subsidise the meal and I’ll either reduce the price (partial refunds will be given) or I’ll offer free tickets to those otherwise unable to afford to join us. I’ll keep you posted!

This event is open to women working in and around the mobile industry. Men are welcome too if accompanied by a female colleague. ID may be required. I reserve the right to refuse entry.

I’m delighted to welcome the first batch of Swedish Beers sponsors for the upcoming Swedish Beers Mobile Networking party in Barcelona.

First up, Equal Experts.

Equal Experts is a network of talented, experienced software and hardware consultants, specialising in agile delivery. Their in-depth expertise and an uncompromising approach to quality make all the difference – and that’s what the background of engineering rigour and proven delivery practices brings.

The company has a long-standing relationship with the mobile industry, having worked with O2 Telefónica on its mobile app platforms since 2012. Together, they delivered the Priority and MyO2 native apps along with the platform that powers them – supporting millions of happy O2 customers along the way.

Equal Experts’ efforts in mobile go beyond software to include proprietary hardware. Their BluetoothTap technology unifies the ‘tap & go’ experience across all major smartphones. IBM iX has adopted BluetoothTap in its vision of the future of retail, successfully using it within a prototype for a secure, mobile-first retail shopping experience to dramatically improve checkout times.

Paul Stringer, and some of his senior mobile team, will be joining us at Swedish Beers. It’s their first time as a sponsor so please be sure to give them a very warm welcome.

Welcome back 51 Degrees!

Next up is 51 Degrees. James Rosewell and his team will be in Barcelona and joining us as a sponsor for the second time. So let’s make sure we welcome them back with open arms.

51Degrees provides The Fastest and Most Accurate Device Detection solution. That may sound like a boast, but James tells me it’s true. Who am I to disagree?!Did you know that over 150 device models are launched worldwide every week?? Well 51Degrees does, because they add them into their database every single week.

Trusted by millions of people, they have over 1.5 million active deployments in virtually every country around the world using the 51Degrees device detection software day in and day out.

This software helps companies in Adtech, Publishing, Digital Experience platforms, Ecommerce, Telco, leveraging our huge database of over 880,000 (and growing) device combinations. This means the tech and screen size never gets in the way of the user experience regardless of device type. Using device detection makes you more money through more accurate targeting and optimized content.

So if you think you know everything there is to know about mobile device detection or optimisation, why don’t you challenge James and his team and test their knowledge over a beer in Barcelona?! You can also check them out in the exhibition on stand 7UP.72.

Welcome back x-Mobility!

x-Mobility is the Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator (MVNA), for Hutchison 3G UK, providing a White-labeled MVNO service for brands wishing to enter the mobile space. x-Mobility has a full MVNO license and provides all the services required for a brand to create its own MVNO proposition. By working with x-Mobility, brands can become a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) launching their own branded mobile service in as little as 90 days and at a fraction of the cost and time of attempting to do this directly with a mobile operator. Pretty neat, huh?

Shanks and his team will be at Swedish Beers and they’re particularly interested to talk to brands (inc MVNOs & OTTs), media owners and app entrepreneurs who are looking to launch Telco Mobile Services about how to enable you with alternative mobile services which, in turn, helps you acquire, grow and own your own subscriber base. Not only that, they’re a great team to hang out with and talk all things telco.

If you haven’t RSVP’d yet, you can do that here. Remember, we’re not in Dostrece this year but I have a brilliant new venue lined up for you in central Barcelona. More on that in the next few days.

Time flies, right! Here we are again in the midst of Winter planning for our few days of sunshine in between meetings, learning and tramping through one of the largest trade shows in the world (handy for getting your steps in while you work). It’s like Glastonbury Festival but for business and with less mud and no camping and we love it really with all its ups and downs. It’s always a week to remember.

And for our part, Swedish Beers is delighted to contribute to the experience once again – our 13th time in Barcelona. It’s sure to be a lucky one, right?!

I’m on the lookout for more sponsors to help the party go with a swing so get in touch if that sounds like you.

In the meantime, you can RSVP here for Wednesday 28 February 2018 from 7pm onwards. And please do tell your friends.

It’s that time of year again when we all get together to celebrate all things mobile. And this year is an even bigger celebration as we are celebrating our 10th Swedish Beers party in Barcelona. How time flies! And how we’ve grown from the 25 or so of us who met that first time in Barcelona for a few beers and a chat!

This year’s party will be on Wednesday 4 March at Dostrece. And sponsorship funds permitting, we will also operate a nearby chill-out lounge as well. Want to talk sponsorship? Then please get in touch with Helen to discuss.

Like our previous events, this is a relaxed evening, no formalities, no presentations, no business cards thrust in your face as soon as you arrive. Just come with an open mind, be prepared to see friends old and new, talk nonsense, enjoy a drink or five and have yourself a good time. Oh, and leave the ties, the corporate personas and the sales spiel at the door please. The Swedish Beers crew will be on hand to welcome you as well as the friendliest bar staff in town.

No need to RSVP unless you want to and want a reminder of when and where the party is. There’s no official guest list, no tickets and there’s no guaranteed entry. Just come and go as you please.

We do have some lovely sponsors lined up for you but there’s room for more – especially as it’s our 10th Anniversary in Barcelona. Get in touch with Helen to discuss.

It is likely to get a bit busy at times. But don’t worry, people will be coming in and out all evening. That’s kind of the point as we know there’s always a lot going on and you might want to check out more than one party. If it’s very busy, there’s no need to queue to get in. Just check out one of the other bars nearby and come back a little later when it’s a bit less frantic.

There is a small cloakroom area at the bar, but it’s not secure so leave the laptops in your hotel room or apartment where they will be safe and won’t get in anyone’s way.

The venue is our favourite haunt with the friendliest bar staff in town, Dos Trece -http://dostrece.net/ We’ll be open from 7pm through until the early hours.